In a few days, DJ Ragz will be going back to Cali. A few weeks back, I made a rare trip into DC with Nene for Ragz’s going away party. As usual, he tore up the spot with his selection of mid-90s hip-hop and a dope west coast set — a nice conceptual present-and-future pair of sets. I’ve gotten to be good friends with Ragz since I first met him in 2000 up at Matt’s radio show and have worked on a few tracks with him over the years. Now that he and Mudd (who I’ve known since 1994!) are signed to Domination Recordings, they’re really starting to get the recognition they deserve.

Nevertheless, I’m going to miss having Ragz around, but wish him the best of luck. I know he’ll find his way back to the east coast, eventually, though. Oh, and hey, go download his sublime mix of instrumental hip-hop that he was giving away at his party. It’s really, really good stuff.

In other news, the snow and ice are finally starting to melt from last week’s storm. Call me a masochist, but I actually enjoyed the frigid temperatures, treacherous roads, and difficult-to-navigate sidewalks. I mean, jeez, it’s winter after all. It’s about time we had some actual winter weather. Amina seemed to enjoy the challenge, too. She had a tough time keeping her balance when squatting on ice-and-sleet-covered snow, so we walked on traveled-upon but untreated roads where she could get a little more traction.

My lesson learned for the week, though: make sure to shovel that first day. I made the mistake of thinking, “Oh, it’ll be alright if I get to it later.” But when you’ve got a couple inches of snow covered with a thick layer of ice and sleet, that stuff doesn’t melt… it just gets harder. By the second day, there was no chance I could crack through that to shovel the sidewalk. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only slack-ass in the area. About half of the neighborhood was still covered five days later.

I made it into work every day last week without much trouble. The Prius did a great job on the icy roads, particularly that first day. The anti-skid control kicked in a number of times and really stabilized the car before it lost its grip.

A few days ago, Rasine turned five months old. She’s also peeing on the toilet. Seriously. (Not exclusively and not because we’re forcing her into potty training early, but it’s still worth noting.)

That’s my girl.

She’s also been very insistent that we keep her site up-to-date, so we’ve been doing our best. (If you need the user name/password, let me know.)

Sysinternals stuff is essential. I’ve used their PageDefrag app for years. Here’s a bunch of their stuff rolled into a single package. (I just noticed the other day they’d been swallowed by Microsoft. Huh.)